Turkmen, Pakistani presidents pledge pipeline summit
Wednesday, 01 Sep, 2010
ASHGABAT: The leaders of Turkmenistan and Pakistan have called for a top-level summit to revive a stalled project to build a natural gas pipeline from the ex-Soviet state to the east, state media said Wednesday.
Ashgabat and Islamabad agreed in 2002 to build a 1,700 kilometre (1,060 mile) pipeline to deliver Turkmen gas to Pakistan and India via Afghanistan but the project has stalled because of the conflict with the Taliban.
The summit, proposed for December, is the latest sign of growing momentum around the project following a series of recent high-level talks between regional leaders and the signing of a framework deal in Kabul on Monday.
Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov and his Pakistani counterpart Asif Ali Zardari agreed in telephone talks to hold the meeting in the Turkmen capital Ashgabat, Turkmen state television said.
Zardari “would be pleased to participate in a December meeting of the heads of states of the participants of the project,” it reported following the conversation.
The pipeline aims to transport over 30 billion cubic metres of gas annually from the Dauletabad gas fields in southeast Turkmenistan to Afghanistan, Pakistan, and possibly India.
Despite receiving financing from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) the project, whose route would take it through conflict torn-Helmand and Kandahar in Afghanistan and Quetta in Pakistan, has been held up by security problems.
Turkmenistan sits atop the world's fourth-biggest natural gas reserves and Russia, China and the West are vying to expand their presence there as the country cautiously relaxes the policy of isolation imposed by Berdymukhamedov's late predecessor Saparmurat Niyazov. – AFP
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